Exhibition
Explore What the Future Could Look Like at This Barbican Exhibition
Filmmaker, artist and speculative futurist Liam Young is taking over the Barbican to imagine what the future of humanity could look like. With In Other Worlds, his first major UK solo exhibition, Young will be transforming the Silk Street Entrance, The Curve and Car Park 5 into an immersive experience blending world-building, fiction, design and climate science. Created in collaboration with leading voices from film, TV, literature and science, the show features a range of films, audio stories, tapestries, soundscapes and costumes, and constructs a series of imagined futures for our planet, rooted in the consequences and opportunities of the decisions we make today.
The V&A Is Hosting a Landmark Exhibition on Art From the Asia Pacific Region
Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific at the V&A, in partnership with Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), is a landmark exhibition bringing together the work of more than 40 artists from 25 countries across the Asia Pacific region. The show will draw on the more than 30 years of QAGOMA’s Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art to showcase the creative landscape of the region. Over 70 works across sculpture, photography, painting, ceramics, weaving and body adornment – many of which have not been shown outside of the region – will be on display, foregrounding First Nations perspectives, highlighting both the commonality and diversity in art making, reflecting local traditions and faith systems, and exploring how artists respond to social and political upheaval.
This Is the First-Ever Museum Exhibition on NIGO Outside of Japan
The Design Museum is hosting NIGO: From Japan With Love, the first ever museum retrospective and exhibition outside of Japan that showcases the career and life of the Japanese creative director, NIGO. One of the first creatives to bridge the gap between streetwear and luxury fashion, NIGO (who founded A Bathing Ape and is artistic director of Kenzo) has defined trends in modern fashion. The show, featuring over 700 objects, including pieces from his vintage clothing collection, ceramics, rare designs, a recreation of his teenage bedroom, and a life-size glass tea house, will highlight his ability to draw on wide-ranging disciplines and cultural references, create iconic brands, and influence the worlds of fashion, music, architecture and interior design.
Look Back on the Wildest Year of Britain's Wildest Decade at This Exhibition
Three decades on, the Barbican Music Library is looking back at 1996, the wildest year of the 90s and the height of Cool Britannia with the 1996: 30 years on exhibition. Curated by author, broadcaster and former editor of The Sun Dominic Mohan, the free exhibition is the place to relive the 90s and the time when London was the epicentre of music, fashion, football, politics, and art. Check out original costumes worn by the Spice Girls; previously unseen Oasis memorabilia; photography by Jill Furmanovsky and Derek Ridgers, and personal items the likes of Paul Oakenfold, Dave Pearce and Judge Jules.
Wolf Alice, Geese, Fontaines DC and More Are Raising Money for Teenage Cancer Trust
Teenage Cancer Trust is back with its annual series of gigs at the Royal Albert Hall this spring, where the likes of Wolf Alice, Elbow, Mogwai and Garbage are headlining shows, and this year, the charity is also running an accompanying art exhibition and print series. Good Energy features 21 limited-edition silk screen prints that capture the feeling of live performance and the connection between artist and fan. The prints have been chosen by artists including The 1975, Geese, Fontaines DC, Wolf Alice, Yungblud, Nick Cave, Nia Archives, Keane, Sex Pistols feat Frank Carter, The Big Moon, The Snuts, Courteeners, Bring Me The Horizon, Enter Shikari, Elbow and more. The images will be on display throughout the event series and you can also buy the prints here.
Major Contemporary Artists Are Auctioning Works to Raise Money for Palestine
Following the Together For Palestine concert last autumn, which raised over £2m for humanitarian organisations, Choose Love is teaming up with Gideon Berger Studio, HOPE93 Gallery and Zayna Al-Saleh to host a fundraising art auction. Rare and exclusive works from major contemporary artists, including Es Devlin, Jeremy Deller, Grayson Perry, Khaled Hourani, and ‘Nablus’ by Nabil Anani, will be open for bids at an online auction from 26th March – 9th April, with an exhibition of the works running across those dates at the HOPE93 Gallery. All profits from the auction will be donated to the Together For Palestine Fund to support emergency relief in Palestine, in the form of food and water, healthcare, shelter, mental health support and the largest orphan care programme in Gaza
See Portraits by Catherine Opie at the National Portrait Gallery
The National Portrait Gallery is hosting the first major museum exhibition of American artist Catherine Opie’s work in the UK. Her work explores topics like home, family, intimacy, identity, politics and power structures and over the past 30 years, she’s photographed queer communities, surfers, political crowds, children, high-school footballers, and often herself too. In Catherine Opie: To Be Seen, works from across her career will be displayed, including her first major piece ‘Being and Having’, her Hans Holbein-inspired portraits of LGBTQ+ friends and her Baroque-like portraits of artists.
Tate Britain Is Hosting the First Major Show on Hurvin Anderson
More than 80 paintings from across Hurvin Anderson’s entire career are going on display at Tate Britain in what will be the first major show on the artist. The youngest of eight and the first to be born in the UK after his family moved to Birmingham from Jamaica in the 1960s, Anderson’s work reflects his experiences of belonging and diaspora. His rich, colourful works often include family members, experiences from his youth and places of significance, like the barbershop, which he sometimes layers as a way of exploring the ideas of memory and tension around cultural heritage.
The Hayward Gallery Is Doing a Double Presentation on Chiharu Shiota and Yin Xiuzhen
The Hayward Gallery is presenting concurrent exhibitions by Chiharu Shiota and Yin Xiuzhen, two artists who use ordinary materials to create monumental works, to explore the way they interweave textiles and found objects into personal reflections on memory, identity and the human condition. Threads of Life by Berlin-based Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is her first major solo exhibition in a London public gallery. She’s displaying immersive woven works on the gallery’s top floor, where huge thread structures engulf objects like beds, chairs and shoes as a way of interrogating ideas about consciousness, memory and existence. These are joined by new large-scale sculptures, drawings and early performance videos. Heart to Heart is the first major survey on Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen, and features large-scale installations made from everyday objects and used clothing to invite us to see the familiar in new ways. As well as sculpture, photography, video and archival performance material, her presentation features a new commission – a large textile installation made from used clothing and shaped like a human heart.
An Immersive David Bowie Experience Is Coming to London
It’s been ten years since David Bowie died but London’s love for the iconic artist is stronger than ever and now a new immersive experience is coming to Lightroom. The King’s Cross gallery is hosting David Bowie: You’re Not Alone, which will take people inside the mind of the visionary artist. The presentation features a mixture of famous, rarely seen and never-before-exhibited material taken from the David Bowie Archive in New York along with photography, drawings, lyrics, personal notes and audio recordings. Bowie’s is the sole voice of the experience and the structure of the show offers a unique insight into his thoughts on topics like theatricality, spirituality, songwriting and creativity. So as well as looking and sounding incredible – there’ll be 360° visuals and reconfigured tracks for the gallery’s spatial audio system – it’s promising to be an “intimate and revealing self-portrait”.
David Hockney Is Showing at Serpentine For the First Time
David Hockney: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting, opening at Serpentine North, is the artist’s first exhibition at the gallery. The show will feature new works from Hockney – five still lifes and five portraits of people in his close circle – all sharing a similar frontal composition and a recurring gingham tablecloth motif. The gallery will also display Hockney’s ‘A Year in Normandie’, a ninety-metre-long frieze inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the changing of the seasons at his former studio in the French region. Working on his iPad, Hockney produced over a hundred images during the first Covid lockdown in 2020, recording the changes in light and weather during the spring. As lockdown lifted and the seasons shifted, he continued to digitally capture the whole cycle of the year, showcasing the ways that art and technology can come together and highlighting the beauty in the everyday. The whole digital print will be shown in the North Gallery, with a large-scale printed mural highlighting a scene from the spring cycle being presented in the garden.
See How Wallace & Gromit Come to Life at This Aardman Exhibition
Dive into the world of Aardman, the studio responsible for some of the most-loved characters of all time, with the Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends exhibition at the Young V&A. The show, coinciding with the studio’s 50th anniversary, will take you behind the scenes of the animation process, covering development, storyboarding, model making, filming and post-production, exploring how the likes of Morph, Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep come to life. Over 150 items, across sketches, concept art, puppets, props, scripts, and set models, will be on display, including development sketches for Morph; Wallace & Gromit’s motorbike and sidecar from Vengeance Most Fowl; a storyboard for the train chase in The Wrong Trousers; and set pieces from Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!
This Is the First Ever Exhibition Dedicated to the Seascapes of Georges Seurat
The Courtauld is hosting the first ever exhibition focused on the seascapes of Georges Seurat and the first one on the French artist in the UK in almost 30 years. Seurat and the Sea will explore the evolution of his distinctive Neo-Impressionist technique (using small dots of colour to render shapes and light) through the motif of the sea. Paintings, sketches and drawings made by Seurat during five summers between 1885 and 1890 that he spent on the northern coast of France will be on display, offering a counterpoint to his better known Parisian works.
Discover the Reality Behind the Myth of the Samurai
The British Museum is staging a major exhibition on samurai, exploring how the myth and image of the Japanese warrior was created over the past 1000 years. Around 280 objects will be on display, including a suit of samurai armour, woodblock prints, paintings, clothing, and ceramics. These chartin how the role and perception of the samurai evolved, from a medieval warrior class to an elite social class that included women in the 17th century to the myth of bushido and the code of patriotism and self-sacrifice in the 19th century. Contemporary fashion, manga, TV and video game pieces showcase the samurai’s enduring legacy, from the battlefields of Japan to global pop culture.
This Is the First UK Museum Exhibition Focused on Lucian Freud's Works on Paper
With Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting, the National Portrait Gallery is hosting the UK’s first museum exhibition dedicated to the artist’s works on paper. It explores his lifelong focus on the human face and figure, with pencil, pen, ink, charcoal and etching pieces from the 1930s to the early 21st century on display, some of which are being shown for the first time. A curated group of important paintings will be hung alongside the drawings to highlight the dialogue between his practice on paper and on canvas.
